Movie companies are realizing that as theater and DVD profits sink, there’s a mostly untapped web video market available, and for the right medium of delivery and price, they could profit from web video. Instead of shunning it, thereby helping pirated copies of their movies thrive on Google Video and other sites, they could control the copies.

Many TV networks now air shows online, at least in North America. (They get the benefit of knowing where viewers are from, approximately, and can block viewers geographically, if they want – and they usually do.) Including such shows, according to comScore, 138 million Americans watched 9.5 billion videos online [via NewTeeVee].

Benefits of Using Web Video

You can make web video work for you, and you don’t even have to produce the content. Here are some of the benefits of using web video, either on your site or at video sharing sites.

1. Visual texture for your blog, if you’re embedding content.
2. Used effectively, video content can help build traffic to your blog in a number of ways:
• Web traffic from multiple video sharing sites.
• Traffic from other sites that have embedded your video.
• Traffic from search engines that have indexed your pages on video sharing sites.
• Traffic from social media sites where you or someone else has either submitted your video page or a web page with your video embedded in it.
• Increased repeat traffic from visitors who are attracted back to your site thanks to video content – especially if it’s useful/ fun/ entertaining. Exclusivity can also help but isn’t guaranteed.
3. Opportunity to monetize content, depending on which video sharing site you’re using.

Types of Web Video

Here are a few subcategories of web video to consider.

1. Screencasts – motion video capture from a computer screen using software such as Camstudio (free) or Camtasia Studio.
2. Vodcasts – live video usually shot straight with very little after production. Vodcasts might or might not be streamed live. If you’re a popular figure in your blogging niche, live streaming might be an option. If you’re not, you have some work to do before you’ll get much of a live following.
3. Animation, including stop-motion animation created by stringing together a sequence of still photo/image frames.
4. Produced web video, which might have a mix of live content mixed with special effects and/or screencast content.

What works for your blog depends on the topics you cover. For example, tech topics just lend themselves better to screencasts.

Within the above categories, you should consider “how to” videos, if it suits your niche. Or do a series of live webisodes that are either parodies or commentary/ review. Explore what other video content producers in your niche are doing, then do it better. At least try something different, if you think that’ll give you an advantage.

Creating Web Video

There are increasingly more software options for editing web video. Here are a few software options, as well as a few tips:

1. iMovie – Usually comes already loaded on Mac computers.
2. MovieMaker – Usually already on Windows PCs.
3. Free trials of Sony Vegas Pro, Adobe Premiere and other video editing software that’s in the sub-$1,000 range.
4. Camcorder – Get a reasonable DV video camera, if you can’t afford HD.
5. DV capture card – Some DV cams have a memory card slot, but if you use DV tape, you’ll need a DV capture device, either on an internal card or an external box, such as those sold by Pinnacle.
6. Lighting – Learn that good lighting has to existing up front and that it’s harder to fix bad lighting in your video editing software – unless you own a high-end system and have the knowledge and skills
7. Green screen – Explore green screen/ blue screen techniques if you want to add a layer of professional production. This is also useful for animation.
8. Tripod – Only the most steady of hands can shoot video without camera shake. Get a good tripod, or some sort of camera stabilization system. (Video magazines often have articles on how to build your own inexpensively.)
9. Storyboarding – Learn to storyboard your work videos. This gives you a blueprint to work with and often reduces the amount of reshooting you’ll have to do.

Building Site Traffic with Web Video

There are a number of ways to use web video to increase traffic to your website or blog. Here are a few:

1. TubeMogul. Use TubeMogul to simultaneously upload to multiple video sharing sites.
2. Allow sharing. Let other bloggers and web publishers to embed your videos on their web pages. In fact, encourage it.
3. Watermark your videos with your site’s URL. This way, if other sites embed your video content, you’ll still get some of their visitors over to your site.
4. Produce quality video. “Quality” is a cliched word now, but it still matters. It could mean fun, useful or entertaining, depending on your niche, your audience and your intent.
5. Be a profiler. Use the profile section of your video on each sharing site to link to your URL. Also use your user profile page on each sharing site to link to your site.
6. Network.
1. Build your network of friends on each video sharing site.
2. Add friends.
3. Subscribe to their content.
4. Create and join groups connected to your area of interest.
5. Participate in groups, to stay visible.
6. Subscribe to other content uploaders/ producers who share similar interests. (Hopefully they’ll reciprocate.)
7. Promote your video pages (and post pages with embedded video) on social bookmarking and voting sites, where allowed and appropriate.
8. Tag yourself. Use multiple tags per video, and a keyword-rich description, to increase the chances of it being found through SEs (Search Engines)
9. Publish often. Post more than just one video. Not only do you want to publish multiple videos, you want to do so from a structured approach. Start with a set of very basic videos to tease interest in a few topics that you cover on your blog or website. Follow up with a second set of videos that provide a bit more detail. Finally, publish a few more videos that go into great detail about specific topics. Each set of videos helps filter out the merely curious. The return viewers will be those people who are truly interested in what you have to say or offer.

For additional tools, visit LinkBuildr’s Video Marketing & SEO article.

Webhost Features to Look For

The following aren’t the only qualities and features to look for in a good web host, but if you’re planning to set up a blog, they’re important ones.

1. Easy to use hosting admin panel. While most web hosts allow advanced users to do a manual installation of their blog software, most beginning bloggers probably don’t know how to do that. Then again, even advanced blogmasters who manage multiple blogs sometimes want an admin panel with easy installation and management features. One-click WordPress installations and upgrades are a big plus. For example, CPanel is a powerful admin panel option that some hosts offer, but make sure it comes with Fantastico. Other hosts have custom developed admin panels with their own one click software installations.
2. Useful software and configuration options. Budget webhosts are a dime a dozen, but if they’re not offering the options you need, it doesn’t matter how cheap they are. Start by checking if they offer one-click installations of the blog hosting software that you want. E.g., WordPress or Drupal. To use either of these two (and other) blogging platforms, the host will have to offer mySQL databases, PHP and some other options.
3. Ease of upgrading installed software. If, for example, you install WordPress 2.6 and find that version 2.7 comes out a short time later, you might want to upgrade. Look for hosts that offer simple click-click-click upgrades that don’t require exporting your blog’s content, trashing the database, and starting again.
4. Reliable service. No host is going have your website up 100% of the time, no matter how much they claim to. What’s important is that web server “uptime” is fair.
5. Prompt customer support. If you’re paying for a budget host, you might find yourself having to call for support once in a while. While it’s okay to have email support, some web hosts don’t offer any phone support, and make it complicated to carry on an email conversation. Simple things such as including the text of your initial email to them when they reply would help, but not all hosts do this. Then there are the hosts that do offer phone support but try to sell you all kinds of services you don’t need. Look for some form of prompt customer support with no nonsense.
6. Informed CSRs. Ever dealt with a friendly CSR (Customer Service Representative) who happily displayed their lack of knowledge. While it might be be nice to talk to friendly reps, if they’re uninformed, they’re wasting your time.
7. Customer-centric. For example, if your web host is planning to change web server defaults that will affect your site – possibly costing you revenue – then they’ll email you ahead of time. Some hosts have been known to block Google’s search engine bots, causing some of their customers’ sites to losing their Google Page Rank value. Others have changed server defaults that caused the WordPress or other blog platform’s home page (index.php) to stop displaying and instead show the static index.html page that might say something like “website coming”. Of course, if you only manage one website, that’s not hard to spot. However, if you manage multiple sites, you might be losing money before you notice the problem.
8. Affordable services. This is of course a relative thing. More serious web publishers need quality service, and if paying a little bit more brings reliability, then most will take it. A budget host is fine for most hobby or beginner bloggers, but don’t always expect informed help. Another aspect of affordability is the availability of payment options. For example, it might be easier for someone to pay by PayPal rather than on credit card.

A CMS is a Content Management System. It refers to any type of software with which you can manage files and documents, produced and maintained by one or more people. This includes content for the Web. The term is often taken to mean software for managing web site content exclusively.

But Isn’t WordPress a Blogging Platform?

WordPress is labelled as a blogging platform, but technically speaking, it’s capable of managing pretty much any type of web content. While WordPress is not a full-blown CMS out of the box, it has customization features that allow it to be more powerful than just a blog management tool. In particular, WordPress offers at least the following means of getting more out of the platform than just publishing blogs:

1. Custom PHP/ WordPress code. Tweak your code in WP theme template files. This way, you can apply special functionality in certain types of pages and not others.
2. Custom fields. Custom Fields are a very significant part of using WordPress as a CMS. They allow you to record additional information about users, interactions, content and more.
3. Embedded code. Within the body of a WP blog post, you can embed PHP code. If you’ve installed and activated a WP plugin such as Exec-PHP, then that embedded code will be run whenever the post’s web page is viewed.
4. Plug and play code. In addition to custom code, you can integrate WP interaction with other web applications, running outside of WordPress, either on the same web server or elsewhere. For example, you could set up a Yahoo Pipe and manage the resulting item feed from within WordPress, using custom code.
5. Custom plugins. If you produce custom tweaks using any of the above methods, you could encapsulate all the functionality into a WP plugin. That way, it’s relatively easy to port the functionality to other WordPress-driven blogs and sites.

So What Kind of Sites Can WordPress as a CMS Manage?

With a full-blown CMS, you can manage the content for pretty much any type of website. If you apply the above WP customization methods and factor in hardware support tweaks, WordPress can be nearly as powerful as many commercial CMSes that cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. What’s more, Automattic is moving WordPress into the social networking sphere. Now, you can get even more functionality by using WPMU (WordPress Multi-User) and the BuddyPress social network platform. This combo allows you to have a social network that provides blogs for each member.

For some inspiration on some of the ways that you can use WordPress, see Performancing’s 48 Unique Ways to Use WordPress.

1. Don’t use “admin”. Don’t use it as your admin user name. Doing this reduces the amount of effort a hacker has to put in (even if it’s via an automated script) to break into your site.
2. Use strong passwords. Strong passwords do not have your dog’s name or your birthday or your name. Use a mix of upper and lowercase letters, as well as digits. The longer the better, but use at least eight characters altogether.
3. Change passwords. Change your admin and all user passwords regularly. If you have other bloggers on your site, make sure they change passwords too. Most people can’t decide when to do this, so tell them. Ask them to change their password at the beginning of each month – or on the last day. It’s easy to build a habit about this.
4. View your site regularly. This is to ensure that it’s running fine. A friend of mine recently found out the hard way that his hosting company changed the default setting on the web server of one of his sites. So instead of the WordPress index.php being served automatically, the old static home page, index.html, was showing. This cost him a month of advertising revenue from one network, because the network plugin couldn’t update the ads.
• If you have multiple sites, one way to manage them all quickly is to set up a list of their URLs. If the list is clickable, that’s even better. For example, Google Spreadsheet cells are clickable if a cell contains a valid URL.
• Another option is to use mind mapping software. Make each node represent one of your sites, then link each node to the corresponding URL. Go check out FreeMind and XMind, both of which are free, and one of the more powerful paid desktop versions, MindManager, has a 30-day free trial. (XMind also has a paid pro version.) Note that mind mapping is also a great way to brainstorm for writing content, or even just solving problems.
5. Use anti-spam options. Install comment anti-spam software and regularly moderate your comments. A few of the options you have are:
• Manual moderation. You’ll want to do this anyway, though it’s not enough. Get a plugin to help you.
• Automated moderation. For this you’ll need a WordPress plugin. (See section below.)

Some WP Anti-Spam Plugins

Kyle Eslick at WPHacks talks a bit about a few of the anti-spam options you have for a WP blog, including a new one called AntiSpam Bee. As well, here’s our take on your options.

1. Akismet. Akismet, which is one of the more popular anti-spam options in WP, is only free for personal use. According to the site, if you’re making more than $500/month from your blog, you have to pay for a commercial API key. Otherwise, the API key is free.
2. Spam Karma 2. The Spam Karma 2 plugin is free (but not GPLed). However, as of late 2008, it is apparently no longer being supported – at least according to the plugin’s options area in the WordPress admin panel. It still traps spam comments, but if you try to purge them, you might see database errors displayed. It still works, but the messages are annoying.
3. AntiSpam Bee. Apparently AntiSpam Bee replaces your blog posts’ comments field so that the post cannot be auto-spammed.
4. Trollguard. Trollguard claims that their free WP spam filter plugin can be trained by learning from which comments you delete.
5. Bad Behavior. Bad Behavior is a plugin “for blocking link spam and the robots which deliver it.” So you use it conjunction with comment anti-spam plugins.

Make sure that you select a good web host that supports your anti-spam efforts.

Possible Reasons for StumbleUpon Not Sending Web Traffic

The reasons listed below are only possible reasons, based on an educated guess and the discussions of other bloggers.

1. Not enough “up” votes on your articles, possibly within a certain duration after submission.
2. Too many “down” votes on your articles. Maybe your topic is of little interest to SU users, or of poor quality. Or someone doesn’t like you. (Ah the joys of social media.)
3. Poor categorization. If you don’t have friends submitting your content/ articles, it’s hard to control which categories are being used to tag submissions.
4. Delayed response. One of the benefits of StumbleUpon over, say, Digg, is that if your content goes popular, the traffic does not come all in a flood. SU spreads it out over a period of time. How long? Your guess is as good as mine. (If you know, feel free to comment.)
5. Not enough activity from your user account. When you sign up, you can list your blog’s URL in your profile. If you then have someone else submit all your stories but you yourself are not submitting anything, this might be a factor. This is probably less likely, but SU does like to stimulate social behavior and get all members participating.
6. You don’t submit enough articles and only vote on stories submitted by the same group of people over and over.
7. Self-serving. If you’re submitting your own articles and nothing else, then you’re overpromoting yourself, which SU frowns on. It’s not very sociable.
8. Exclusion. Someone asked SU to exclude the site (and somehow proved they were the owner).
9. Your site or account is banned. (See the next section for reasons.)

Why Your Site or SU Acount Might Be Banned

If your stumbles are not showing up in your SU profile, your account might be banned. Here are some possible reasons for banning in SU.

1. Too many different SU usernames voting from the same IP address.
2. Reciprocal voting activity, based on tracked patterns or published confirmation (i.e., a blog post or social media campaign suggesting potential reciprocal voting activities)
3. Too many users voting on the same story and coming from the same referring URL – e.g., from a forum listing.
4. Misuse of the ‘send’ button. The SU browser tool bar has a Send button that lets you message your SU friends on some content you’d like them to look at. If you you’re only sending them your stories, votes for your site could be discounted.
5. Complaints. This is a pretty broad area, and there can be any sort of complaint from other users which might cause you problems on SU.
6. Other reasons. Missed anything above? Social media sites, no matter how open-minded, always seem to reserve a few reasons to ban someone.

Avoiding Being Banned on StumbleUpon

Some bloggers think StumbleUpon staff are being extreme, but to avoid being banned on StumbleUpon, follow a few simple rules:

1. Submit interesting/ fun/ useful content. Spam will get accounts and sites banned. Read articles carefully before submitting.
2. Submit (and vote up) content from multiple sites, not just yours.
3. Stumble (preferably up) other content that has already been submitted to SU.
4. Avoid “incestuous” reciprocal voting. Sure, SU has a fairly small limit for number of friends, but don’t just vote for your close friends’ submissions.
5. Avoid any sort of reciprocal voting patterns. The idea is to use SU “naturally,” not to market yourself. Marketing yourself shows patterns that many social media sites track for.
6. Avoid any sort of public campaign which might suggest reciprocal voting activity could follow. That might have been one of the reasons Darren Rowse’s very popular ProBlogger blog [was temporarily banned] on SU.
7. Don’t vote from behind company firewalls. Many companies will only show one IP address, and that means all SU users in your company will show as a single IP. Even if it’s not intentional, it’ll unfortunately smell of marketing.

Kevin Rose, aka Mr. Digg.com (which has been valued at anywhere between $0 and several hundred milion dollars), offers, in a guest post at TechCrunch, 10 tips for increasing your Twitter followers. Besides the fact that I’ve never seen Rose write a guest post, and that he left off the most important tip: be Kevin Rose, it’s a good read. But since only he can be Kevin Rose, you’ll have to make do with his 10 tips and hope you’ll get even a fraction of his nearly 90K Twitter followers. Oh by the way, he’s apparently an investor in Twitter. Did this happen before or after he sold his Twitter competitor, Pownce, to Six Apart?

If you’re just starting out with Twitter, it’s also worth checking out David Pogue’s article in the NY Times. He makes several interesting observations about the positive and negative behaviors on Twitter. He has also found that when he speaks at tech and edu conferences, he’s finding maybe 1 in 500 people are on Twitter.

It must depend on what circles you run in because, despite David Pogue’s experience, there are certainly enough Twitter users that there are plans for Twestivals (Twitter festivals) to raise money for charity. We’re not talking a few cities, we’re talking Twitter users from over 100 cities participating for 24 hours on Feb 12, 2009 in various fundraising events. If you want to hold an event, visit the Twestival website for details. All funds raised will go to Charity: water projects].

As a web worker, your web browser is one of your most important tools. It’s performance affects your entire day. If you’re using the Firefox browser and it’s acting sluggish, check out these speed-doubling tweaking tips from Boy Genius Report.

Another item in your web worker/ blogmaster toolkit is probably an HTML editor (especially if you’re blogging, too). When you get used to one editor for your blogging, it’s easy to think it’s your only option. Six Revisions lists nine source code/ WYSIWYG editors in their recent list of 30 useful open source apps for web designers. Of course, many of the apps in the list are great for bloggers and blogmasters too.

Not everyone agrees, but some types of websites need to be visually attractive to be impactful (though others get along just fine looking less so). Blog themes might be fine for, well, blogs, but if you have a newsy site with lots of content, you need something different. Everson News [via Blog Perfume] is a free magazine-y WP theme that is well-suited to sites with a high volume of fresh conent. The emphasis is on headlines, but there’s also a feature article image area, a video, and even a prominent banner ad area. It’s easy for readers to see what’s new, without having to scroll or scan through a lot of text to decide.

Whether you’re running a news site or not, if you want to have multiple authors each with their own blog(s) on your site, you need WPMU (WordPress Multi-User). It gives you the publishing framework you need, allowing for multiple blogs per author. Each blog within a single WPMU installation can have its own subdomain. E.g., blog01.mywpmu.com. Note that some web hosts have a restriction on how many subdomains your hosting account allows. Fortunately, subdomains in WPMU can be managed virtually, to circumvent any such restriction.

Now if you’re still in the beginning stages of building your first blog, check out this list of 29 tips, tutorials and resources from Problogger.

If you need a bit of guidance getting started with WordPress, ElitebyDesign has an absolute beginner guide. Then check out the newly-launched WordPress.tv, and Six Revisions list of 30 WordPress video tutorials.

Word is that there’ll be an online WordPress Handbook which will supplement the WordPress Codex and act as a basic guide to using WordPress.

If you’re still undecided about whether to use WP, take note that blog pinging service Royal Pingdom checked the top 100 blogs as listed on Technorati and found that the vast majority of them run on WordPress.

Convinced about using WordPress? If you’re looking for hosting for your WordPress blog (or any website for that matter), watch our hosting reviews section for upcoming reviews.

Looking for WordPress themes? Elite By Design and Six Revisions both have lists (of 10 and 50, respectively) of free WP themes. Or you might find some inspiration from Vandelay Design’s list of 25 outstanding magazine style website designs.

When you do choose your blog’s theme, ask yourself if you intend to post a lot of pictures. They’ll add visual texture to your site, especially if you publish a lot of long articles. Need some inspiration to convince you to consider lots of pics? Have a look at the collections of photos at Digital Photography School and Smashing Magazine.

Once your WP blog is set up, you’ll need protection from comment spam. Trollguard claims that their WP spam plugin actually learns as it goes, based on what you indicate is spam. The general idea is that it’s adaptive, and should reduce your spam-fighting efforts. Haven’t tried it myself but you can download it free for WP 2.7 and higher from Trollguard.

When you’re ready to start customizing your site, check out ProBlogDesign’s 30 best free icon sets for bloggers.

Ready to start writing articles for your blog? FreelanceSwitch gives you 50 ways to find article ideas. Some of them might not apply to the topics in your blog, but you could learn ways to open your mind to ideas.

Of course, you’ll need to have content on your blog if you want it to rank in Google Search. While I’m always wary of sites that tell you how to become number one on Google Search for various keywords, BoagWorld has some suggestions for ranking high.

1. Saving You a AAA Membership
2. Getting First-Hand Reviews
3. Receiving Advanced Traffic Warnings
4. Making Travel Buddies
5. Getting the REAL Weather
6. Becoming a Super Stalker
7. Making New Gaming Friends
8. Receiving Better Customer Service
9. Becoming More Social

While it is a completely legitimate list, I doubt that the average Twitter user is going to get any of these uses out of it. (For example, I’ve honestly found far more social interaction on Plurk and Facebook with far fewer fans/ followers/ friends, in both cases, than on Twitter.) To benefit the way she’s suggesting, there are a few conditions:

1. You need to have a fairly large following. Even Maki of DoshDosh.com, who has a large Twitter following, has previously implied on Plurk.com that he sometimes gets little response to his Twitter polls. Maybe that’s not quite the same as merely asking a question, but it points out that if more people are not using Twitter in the above ways then it might be difficult for you to, if you’re not yet a popular Twitterer.
2. You need to be active on Twitter. It’s not the same as a web feed that people are subscribing to. A feed reader gives you the choice of a river of news (aggregation of headlines of all subscription feeds) or separate lists per site. Twitter gives you a single river.

So if you ask a question right now but your “best friend” on Twitter doesn’t sign in until two hours from now, they may never see your question. Retweeting your own tweet once in a while might be fine, but if you have to do it all the time, you’re probably going to lose all the people who follow you and are very active on Twitter. They’ll get tired of seeing the same thing over and over. (If you’re auto-updating your Facebook Wall status with your Twitter tweets, then you’ll also annoy your Facebook friends.)

The potential is there for Twitter to be very useful to a lot of people, but in its current state it suffers from the network effect. And since Twitter use means that everyone has to build their own network, Twitter is not valuable “out of the box.” It needs tweeks and mashups and special clients.

A number of the advanced Twitter clients such as Tweetdeck go a step further towards easier consumption of Twitter streams. However, there needs to be more customization features to really make Twitter as useful as suggested in the Mashable list above. The drawback is that Twitter can’t handle the server load, were someone to come with an “ultimate” Twitter client. Though us Twitter lovers are grateful for the service, there are still a number of improvements that Twitter needs to be even more useful. (So for now, a lot of bloggers, at least, are using Twitter to build blog traffic and the odd bit of socializing.)

Other Useful Twitter Uses and Hacks

If you want to use Twitter in more valuable ways, there are a number of options.

1. Thread tweets. For example, if you’re running a WordPress blog, you use FairyFish’s Thread Twitter plugin to organize related tweets in a threaded manner, similar to forums, some email clients and even some blog comments.
2. Microblogs. Check out ThinkVitamin’s tutorial on how you can create a multi-person microblog using Twitter, hashtags and Twitter RSS feeds. If the Twitter hashtag is being used properly, then all you’re doing is searching for instances of its use and pulling those tweets into your microblog. As ThinkVitamin points out, you can embed this micro-blog into any web page running PHP. You don’t need a blog platform.
3. Website integration. Nettuts discusses 10 ways to integrate Twitter into your website, including widgets, buttons, and more.
4. Other apps and services. Woork provides a list of over 30 Twitter services and apps that you might find interesting in making Twitter more useful to you.

The steps below are suggestions of what to do from the WP admin panel after you’ve installed WP. The order of steps is approximate.

1. Change admin password. Make it as strong as possible. Use a combination of digits and letters (upper and lowercase). Change the password regularly.
2. Create other author and/or admin accounts. This is an optional step. If you have more than one administrator, give each person their own username set to “admin” status. Make sure that all authors and admins use a strong password – especially admins.
3. Change permalinks configuration. Permalinks are the URLs for each blog post. WordPress gives you a variety of options, but the default (mydomain.com/?p=31) is not very user-friendly. It’s also a missed opportunity for better search engine rankings. Use something like the “/%postname%/” option. It’s easier on the eyes, and if you’re using keywords in your blog post titles, then they’ll show in your URLs – which for some search engines translates into higher potential search rankings and higher potential traffic.
4. Change settings such as time zone, comments enabled or disabled, trackbacks, whether people can subscribe as members, privacy (whether you want to search engines out), etc.Change other settings. For example,
5. Pick a theme. Before you start installing plugins, pick a theme you’ll be happy with for a while. (Some themes are just not compatible with some plugins.) Free WordPress themes are all over the Internet. However, if you extra bells and whistles (optimized, extra features, widget-ready), you might have to spend a little for a premium theme.
6. Install plugins. Which plugins you install depends on what you’ll be doing with your WordPress blog. At the very least, install some sort of comment spam fighter. E.g., Akismet (since Spam Karma is no longer being supported). Also consider installing some SEO plugins to improve your blog traffic and to help visitors find what they want.
7. Customize theme. Now you can start adjusting your theme, replacing banners, adding feed subscription buttons and so on.
8. Add any ad codes. Will you have advertising on your blog? Opinions differ, but displaying ads when you launch is one way to go. It makes customization easier, instead of having to readjust later.
9. Add categories. You don’t necessarily have to add all possible categories for your blog all at once. However, do add a few to start, and add more as necessary. Use mixed-case letters. For example, instead of “search engines” use “Search Engines”.
10. Add some fake content to your blog database to test the theme. It’ll show you if ads are displaying properly, whether your “more” links for posts are working, as well as page navigation, amongst other things. When you’re finished, don’t forget to delete all the fake content. You don’t want this content indexed by search engines, so make sure privacy is on first, then set to public after testing.Import some fake content. Most bloggers don’t bother, but if you have the time and patience, it’s worth
11. Add Google Analytics code. If this is just a hobby blog, you don’t need to bother. If it’s something more serious, you WANT to track your web traffic and the behavior of your visitors. Google Analytics is one of the best web metrics packages available and it’s free.
12. Add widgets. For example, you might want to integrate Twitter with your blog, to display your latest tweets or even tweet from your blog’s sidebar. Or you might simply want to display a calendar.
13. Start posting. Time to start publishing content to your new blog. You can set the frequency, though you might find it easier to start with several small posts or articles per day. Others prefer writing longer posts fewer times per week. Whatever you do, try to be consistent.
14. Monitor your stats. You have web metrics installed, so check your statistics, monitor traffic growth. Where are your visitors coming from? That is, from which websites? Are any of them returning? Are they finding what they want on your blog or are they leaving pretty soon after coming?
15. Start using social media. Try driving traffic with Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites. Fact: there are a lot of blogs out there and unless you use multiple methods of building your traffic, it doesn’t matter how good your articles are.

This is not a comprehensive list of steps that follow your installation of WordPress. However, it covers the basics. Firewall blog will go into other steps in more detail. Keep visiting, and don’t forget to subscribe.

Key Steps for Building Blog Traffic With Twitter

The first step, of course, is to sign up with Twitter, upload a picture or avatar, and fill out your profile. The profile allows you to link back to your website. [Note: plugins specifically mentioned and/or linked to below are for the WordPress blogging platform.]

1. Build your Twitter following. Add people who add you. Add movers and shakers. Add people who have a tendency to add back, if you follow them. (Compare the number of people they’re following with the number that are following them. These should be “close” in number.) To auto-follow, use a web service such as Tweetlater.
   
2. Post frequently on your blog. Not just indepth posts but also short bits for variety. Regular posting alone can increase your traffic, especially to a new blog. If you combine it with regular use of Twitter, this can generate even more traffic.
3. Display your latest tweets on your blog, either using a plugin or some custom code.
4. Display a “follow me on Twitter” button on your blog. This draws in your current readership. (Some bloggers are reporting higher Twitter followers compared to blog subscribers.)
5. Tweet your blog posts. In addition to sharing other web pages on Twitter, share your blog posts. This can be done manually, or you can install a plugin to auto-tweet a new headline (and link) to your Twitter stream.
6. Install a “tweet this” button on your blog, to be displayed on each of your posts. This lets your blog readers share the posts they enjoy, in their Twitter stream.
7. Retweet your post. Retweet the same post a couple of times in the same day, to ensure that more people see it. Make sure that you aren’t only tweeting your links, or links in general. If your entire Twitter stream is only links, people might start unfollowing you. Use Twitter the same way you might use your Facebook Wall’s status message: to say what you’re up to right now, or will be up to, announce events, share information, ask questions.

Keep tweeting and building your following. The more people in your network(s), the more likely a link will get retweeted.

Side note: Are you worried about having too many browser tabs open? If you’re using WordPress for your blog, you can use the Twitter Tools WP plugin to tweet from your blog’s sidebar. (Twitter Tools requires you have at least WP 2.3.) If you just want the ability to let your readers share your blog posts on Twitter, you can use Richard Thripp’s Tweet This WP plugin, which runs in older versions of WP as well new ones.